THE REMEDY. 745 



the country. This plan would reduce the interest on all 

 loans to 3 per cent., and ungodly usury be banished from 

 the land. Men would actively engage in new enterprises. 

 The resources of the country would be developed, and 

 labor remuneratively employed. 



National banks should be abolished and the money be 

 issued and its volume controlled by the general government. 

 This would insure approximately uniform prices. With 

 this assurance capital would undertake many enterprises 

 which they dare not under the present system. Labor 

 would be in good demand and well paid. For the same 

 reasons we should have free coinage of silver, and the 

 national debt be paid as rapidly as possible. 



Laws regulating transportation and communication 

 should be enacted and steps taken to obtain government 

 control of the railways and telegraph lines in the United 

 States. For various reasons, which we have neither time 

 nor space to discuss here, this is a much easier task than is 

 generally supposed. 



The vast systems constituting the great public high- 

 ways, and clothed with the power to levy tribute upon the 

 products of labor would be much safer in the hands of 

 the people than when owned and controlled by com- 

 binations of unscrupulous capitalists who boast of the 

 power their money has over the people's representatives 

 and over the courts of the country. It is much better for 

 a government to own and control the railroads than for 

 the railroads to own and control the government. While 

 the ownership and control of these vast systems by the 

 general government would be attended with difficulties, 

 opening up avenues for corrupt uses of official influence 

 and patronage, as does the postal system of the United 

 States, yet, we believe that with the proper safeguards 

 thrown around the system, that the abuses attending it 

 would be immeasurably less than the corruption which the 



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